The White Mountain (34 page)

‘It is most irregular, Major—' the old man began, affronted by the request, but Karr barked at him angrily.

‘This is
my
investigation, Surgeon Wu, and you'll do as I say! Now get to it. I want a report ready for my signature in twenty minutes.'

Karr stood by the door, his back turned on the girl, while the old man and his assistant did their work. Only when they'd finished did he turn back.

The girl lay on the couch, naked, the very straightness of her posture, like the look in her eyes, a gesture of defiance. Karr stared at her a moment, then looked away, a feeling of unease eating at him. If the truth were told, he admired her. Admired the way she had lain there, suffering all the indignities they had put her through, and yet had retained her sense of self-pride. In that she reminded him of Marie.

He looked away, disturbed at where his thoughts had led him. Marie was no terrorist, after all. Yet the thought was valid. He had only to glance at the girl – at the way she held herself – and he could see the similarities. It was not a physical resemblance – though both were fine, strong women – but some inward quality that showed itself in every movement, every gesture.

He went across and opened one of the store cupboards on the far side of the room, then returned, laying the sheet over her, covering her nakedness. She stared up at him a moment, surprised, then looked away.

‘You will be moved to another cell,' he said, looking about him at the appalling bareness of the room. ‘Somewhere more comfortable than this.'

He looked back at her, seeing how her body was tensed beneath the sheet. She didn't trust him. But, then, why should she? He was her enemy. He may have shown her some small kindness now, but ultimately it was his role to destroy her, and she knew that.

Maybe this was just as cruel. Maybe he should just have let this butcher, Wu, get on with things. But some instinct in him cried out against that. She was not like the others he had had to act against – not like DeVore or Berdichev. There he had known exactly where he stood, but here…

He turned away, angry with himself. Angry that he found himself so much in sympathy with her; that she reminded him so much of his Marie. Was it merely that? That deep resemblance? If so, it was reason enough to ask to be taken off the case. But he wasn't sure it
was
. Rather, it was some likeness to himself; the same thing he had seen in Marie, perhaps – that had made him want her for his mate. Yet if that were so, what did it say about him? Had things changed so much – had
he
changed so much – that he could now see eye to eye with his master's enemies?

He looked back at her – at the clear, female shape of her beneath the sheet – and felt a slight tremor pass through him. Was he deluding
himself – making it harder for himself – by seeing in her some reflection of his own deep-rooted unease? Was it that? For if it were…

‘Major Karr?'

He turned. Surgeon Wu stood there, the medical report on the table beside him.

Karr picked it up, studying it carefully, then took the pen and signed, giving the under-copy to the surgeon.

‘Okay. You can go now, Wu. I'll finish off here.'

Wu's lips and eyes formed a brief, knowing smile. ‘As you wish, Major Karr.' Then, bowing his head, he departed, his assistant – silent, colourless, like a pale shadow of the old man – following two paces behind.

Karr turned back to the woman. ‘Is there anything you need?'

She looked at him a moment. ‘My freedom? A new identity, perhaps?' She fell silent, a look of sour resignation on her face. ‘No, Major Karr. There's nothing I need.'

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘We'll move you in the next hour or so. Then, later, I'll be back to question you. We know a great deal anyway, but it would be best for you…'

‘
Best
for me?' She stared back at him, a look of disbelief in her eyes. ‘Do what you must, Major Karr, but never tell me what's best for me. Because you just don't know. You haven't any idea.'

He felt a shiver pass through him. She was right. This much was fated. Was like a script from which they both must read. But best…? He turned away. This was their fate, but at least he could make it easy for her once they had done – make it painless and clean. That much he could do, little as it was.

In Tao Yuan, in the walled burial ground of the Wang clan, it was raining. Beneath a sky of dense grey-black cloud, Wang Sau-leyan stood before the open tomb, his cloak pulled tight about him, staring wide-eyed into the darkness below.

Hung Mien-lo, watching from nearby, felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. So it was true. The tomb had been breached from within, the stone casket that had held Wang Ta-hung shattered like a plaster god. And the contents?

He shuddered. There were footprints in the earth, traces of fibre, but nothing conclusive. Nothing to link the missing corpse with the damage to the tomb. Unless one believed the film.

On the flight over from Alexandria they had talked it through, the T'ang's insistence bordering on madness. The dead did not rise, he argued, so it was something else. Someone had set this up, to frighten him and try to undermine him. But how? And who?

Li Yuan was the obvious candidate – he had most to gain from such a move – but equally he had had least opportunity. Hung's spies had kept a close watch on the young T'ang of Europe and no sign of anything relating to this matter had emerged – not even the smallest hint.

Tsu Ma, then? Again, he had motive enough, and it was true that Hung's spies in the Tsu household were less effective than in any other of the palaces, but somehow it seemed at odds with Tsu Ma's nature. With Tsu Ma even his deviousness had a quality of directness to it.

So who did that leave? Mach? The thought was preposterous. As for the other T'ang, they had no real motive – even Wu Shih. Sun Li Hua had had motive enough, but he was dead, his family slaughtered, to the third generation.

All of which made the reality of this – the shattered slabs, the empty casket – that much more disturbing. Besides which, the thing was out there somewhere, a strong, powerful creature, capable of splitting stone and lifting a slab four times the weight of a man.

Something inhuman.

He watched the T'ang go inside and turned away, looking about him at the layout of the rain-swept garden. Unless it was the real Wang Ta-hung, it would have had to get inside the tomb before it could break out so spectacularly, so how would it have done that?

Hung Mien-lo paced to and fro slowly, trying to work things out. It was possible that the being had been there a long time – placed there at the time of Wang Ta-hung's burial ceremony, or before. But that was unlikely. Unless it was a machine it would have had to eat, and he had yet to see a machine as lifelike as the one that had burst from the tomb.

So how? How would something have got into the tomb without them seeing it?

He called the head of the team across and questioned him. It seemed
that the security cameras here worked on a simple principle. For most of the time the cameras were inactive, but at the least noise or sign of movement they would focus on the source of the disturbance, following it until it left their field of vision. In the dark it was programmed to respond to the heat traces of intruders.

The advantage of such a system was that it was easy to check each camera's output. There was no need to reel through hours of static film; one had only to look at what was there.

Hung could see how that made sense… normally. Yet what if, just this once, something cold and silent had crept in through the darkness?

He went across, looking down into the tomb. At the foot of the steps, in the candlelit interior, Wang was standing beside the broken casket, staring down into its emptiness. Sensing Hung there, above him, Wang Sau-leyan turned, looking up. ‘He's dead. I felt him. He was cold.'

The T'ang's words sent a shiver down his spine.
Something cold…
He backed away, bowing low, as Wang came up the steps.

‘You'll find out who did this, Master Hung. And you'll find that thing… whatever it is. But until you do, you can consider yourself demoted, without title. Understand me?'

Hung met the T'ang's eyes, then let his head drop, giving a silent nod of acquiescence.

‘Good. Then set to it. This business makes my flesh creep.'

And mine
, thought Hung Mien-lo, concealing the bitter anger he was feeling.
And mine
.

Since the fire that had destroyed it, Deck Fourteen of Central Bremen stack had been rebuilt, though not to the old pattern. Out of respect for those who had died here, it had been converted into a memorial park, landscaped to resemble the ancient water gardens – the Chuo Cheng Yuan – at Su Chou. Guards walked the narrow paths, accompanied by their wives and children, or alone, enjoying the peaceful harmony of the lake, the rocks, the delicate bridges and stilted pavilions. From time to time one or more would stop beside the great
t'ing
, named ‘Beautiful Snow, Beautiful Clouds' after its original, and stare up at the great stone – the Stone of Enduring Sorrow – that had been placed there by the young T'ang only months before, reading
the red-painted names cut into its broad, pale grey flank. The names of all eleven thousand and eighteen men, women and children who had been killed here by the
Ping Tiao
.

Further down, on the far side of the lotus lake, a stone boat jutted from the bank. This was the teahouse, Travelling by Sea. At one of the stone benches near the prow Karr sat, alone, a
chung
of the house's finest
ch'a
before him. Nearby two of his guards made sure he was not disturbed.

From where Karr sat, he could see the Stone, its shape partially obscured by the willows on the far bank, its top edge blunted like a filed tooth. He stared at it a while, trying to fit it into the context of recent events.

He sipped at his
ch'a
, his unease returning stronger than ever. However he tried to argue it, it didn't feel right. Ywe Hao would never have done this. Would never, for a moment, have countenanced killing so many innocent people. No. He had read what she had written about her brother and been touched by it. Had heard what the guard, Leyden, had said about her. Had watched the tape of Chen's interview with the two boys – her young lookouts – and seen the fierce love for her in their eyes. Finally he had seen with his own eyes what had happened at the Dragonfly Club, and in his heart of hearts he could find no wrong in what she had done.

She was a killer, yes, but, then, so was he, and who was to say what justified the act of killing, what made it right or wrong? He killed to order, she for conscience's sake, and who could say which of those was right, which wrong?

And now this – this latest twist. He looked down at the scroll on the table beside the
chung
and shook his head. He should have killed her while he'd still had the chance. No one would have known. No one but himself.

He set his bowl down angrily, splashing the
ch'a
. Where the hell was Chen? What in the gods' names was keeping him?

But when he turned, it was to find Chen there, moving past the guards to greet him.

‘So what's been happening?'

‘This…' Karr said, pushing the scroll across to him.

Chen unfurled it and began to read.

‘They've taken it out of our hands,' Karr said, his voice low and angry. ‘They've pushed us aside, and I want to know why.'

Chen looked up, puzzled by his friend's reaction. ‘All it says here is that
we are to hand her over to the
T'ing Wei
. That is strange, I agree, but not totally unheard of.'

Karr shook his head. ‘No. Look further down. The second to last paragraph. Read it. See what it says.'

Chen looked back at the scroll, reading the relevant paragraph quickly, then looked up again, frowning. ‘That can't be right, surely? SimFic? They are to hand her over to SimFic? What is Tolonen thinking of?'

‘It's not the Marshal. Look. There at the bottom of the scroll. That's the Chancellor's seal. Which means Li Yuan must have authorized this.'

Chen sat back, astonished. ‘But why? It makes no sense.'

Karr shook his head. ‘No. It makes sense. It's just that we don't know how it fits together yet.'

‘And you want to know?'

‘Yes.'

‘But isn't that outside our jurisdiction?'

Karr leaned towards him. ‘I've done a bit of digging and it seems that the
Ting Wei
are to hand her over to SimFic's African operation.'

Chen frowned. ‘Africa?'

‘Yes. But listen. It seems she's destined for a special unit in East Africa. A place named Kibwezi. The gods alone know what they do there or why they want her, but it's certainly important – important enough to warrant the T'ang's direct intervention. And that's why I called for you. I've another job for you – another task for our friend Tong Chou.'

Tong Chou was Chen's alias. The name he had used in the Plantations when he had gone in there after DeVore.

Chen took a long breath. Wang Ti was close to term: the child was due some time in the next few weeks and he had hoped to be there at the birth. But this was his duty. What he was paid to do. He met Karr's eyes, nodding. ‘All right. When do I start?'

‘Tomorrow. The documentation is being prepared. You're to be transferred to Kibwezi from the European arm of SimFic. All the relevant background information will be with you by tonight.'

‘And the woman? Ywe Hao? Am I to accompany her?'

Karr shook his head. ‘No. That would seem too circumstantial, neh? Besides which, the transfer won't be made for another few days yet. It'll give you time to find out what's going on over there.'

‘And how will I report back?'

‘You won't. Not until you have to come out.'